Grundy suspended over controversial interview with punk band Sex Pistols
This week in 1976, television presenter Bill Grundy was suspended for two weeks by Thames Television after angry viewers complained of four-letter words used during an interview with the punk rock group Sex Pistols.
Thames also reprimanded those responsible for Sex Pistols’ appearance on their ‘Today’ teatime show.
Sex Pistols were the leaders of punk rock – a new development in music, which created its own lifestyle fashions and controversies.
The group was managed by Malcolm McLaren, who ran a clothes shop called Sex in King’s Road, Chelsea, specialising in leather and rubber clothing.
McLaren said: “We do not apologise for anything that we said. Mr Grundy’s intention to expose the Sex Pistols as loud-mouthed yobs was misdirected. The band ARE yobs and proud of it.
“They are working-class spivs, dole-esque kids. They dress loudly and are loudmouthed like all young kids in a similar predicament.”
Grundy had “resorted to provoking them. What he got was a totally honest reaction,” McLaren added.
In other news, two dangerous patients from the State Mental Hospital at Carstairs, in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, were arrested after three people – including a policeman – were murdered during an escape from the hospital.
The two men were captured on the M6 just outside Carlisle after the car they were driving crashed during a dramatic chase down the A74 involving at one stage more than ten police cars.
The escape, described as a well-planned operation, involved the use of a knife and an axe. A nurse’s uniform, used as a disguise, was reported to have induced the guard to open the main gate. The alarm was raised when the nurse was found dead.
And finally, Benjamin Britten, considered to be Britain’s leading composer, died aged 63.
He had been fighting ill health since a heart operation in 1973.